The Mecca Charter:  Saudi Exploitation of Religion for Secular Ends?

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

    On October 19th, 2006, selected Sunni and Shi’a religious leaders have gathered in the holy city of Makkah to draft a so-called Mecca Charter designed to condemn the political and sectarian violence in Iraq in order “to consolidate Iraqi security, unity, and stability.”

  We should all pray that the Mecca conference can marshal sufficient religious leadership to convince desperate people that all the world religions condemn the use of force in Iraq, either by the peoples who live there or by any foreign powers, regardless of which religion they try to abuse in justifying their crimes.  Radical fundamentalists in Oklahoma and in the caves of Afghanistan must be shown that there are other better ways to secure human rights.

  The conveners of the Makkah conference have condemned the creation of “weak, mini-states.”  This sounds like propaganda designed to prevent the resurrection of ancient nations powerful enough effectively to resist the contralizing efforts of global hegemonists and oil multi-nationals.  The Saudis have a special interest in a centrally controlled Iraqi state in order to stop the resurgence of Shi’a leadership in Southwest Asia.

  The foreigners, Saudis, Americans, Turks, and Iranians, are determined to prevent the national liberation of the Basra Republic from their own influence and of the Kurdish nation from oppression by half the countries in this part of the world.

  If the Saudis were truly interested in human rights, they would back the federation of nations in the Fertile Crescent based on the pulverization of centralized political power by democratizing the economic base of society.  The current American war to centralize political power is designed to maintain foreign control of the natural resources in the Fertile Crescent on behalf of the oil majors.  The best way to broaden the real base of power is to broaden ownership of productive wealth, not to concentrate it through either capitalist or socialist aggression. 

  If the Saudis really believe in haqq al mal and haqq al hurriya, which are the two universal principles of the shari’ah dealing with private property and political freedom, they would call for the privatization of Iraq oil ownership to every person in what is now Iraq, whether Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurd, through equal inalienable shares of stock.  This, of course, would block foreign control and exploitation, and set a powerful precedent for institutional reform through economic and political democratization throughout the world, which is precisely what the Saudi/U.S. alliance is trying to prevent.

  We should pray for the end of violence throughout Southwest Asia, whether in the Holy Land or in the birthplace of civilizations further east, but we should also pray that the religious leaders in the Makkah conference today and tomorrow will call for justice as their ultimate goal in order to marginalize secular power as a false god.